The invention concerns a labeling station having a rotating gripper cylinder and a pickup element carrier rotating in the same sense whose contrary rotary or rocking movement in the transfer of labels is controlled such that its receiving surface rolls at least in its forward area on the gripper cylinder surface as the gripper cylinder revolves.
In a known labeling station of this kind (DT-AS 2,325,244), the receiving surfaces are first coated with glue at a glue roll. Then with their glue-coated receiving surface they pick up a label from a stack of labels and transfer it to the gripper cylinder. The pickup elements are driven by a planetary gear drive which consists of a stationary sun gear and a pinion associated with each pickup element. To satisfy the requirement that the receiving surface will roll at the various stations, such as the glue roll, the flat front of the label stack and the gripper cylinder, the pickup elements are journaled between the pickup surface and its center of curvature and each element has a cam-controlled equalizing drive. This equalizing drive consists of a steep-threaded spindle with a threaded sleeve mounted thereon and bearing the pinion. By the axial displacement of the threaded sleeve according to the configuration of the stationary cam, the self rotation of each pickup element, which is produced by the planetary gear drive, is accelerated or retarded.
With this known labeling station and other known labeling stations, only those labels can be used whose length, corresponding to the arc length of the receiving surface of a pickup element, is not greater than the arc length of the division of the gripper cylinder. Longer labels, after transfer to the gripper cylinder, would overlap the gripper elements for the next label to be applied and thus would interfere with the transfer of this label.